The Birth of a Galaxy: Primordial Metal Enrichment and Stellar Populations
Abstract Not Provided
Astrophysics,ASTRO↗
Engineering topics
Norman, Michael L
Publications and source records attributed to Norman, Michael L.
COMPARISONS OF COSMOLOGICAL MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMIC GALAXY CLUSTER SIMULATIONS TO RADIO OBSERVATIONS
Radio observations of galaxy clusters show that there are {mu}G magnetic fields permeating the intracluster medium (ICM), but it is hard to accurately constrain the strength and structure of the magnetic fields without the help of advanced computer simulations. We present qualitative comparisons of synthetic Very Large Array observations of simulated galaxy clusters to radio observations of Faraday rotation measure (RM) and radio halos. The cluster formation is modeled using adaptive mesh refinement magnetohydrodynamic simulations with the assumption that the initial magnetic fields are injected into the ICM by active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at high redshift. In addition to simulated clusters in Xu et al., we present a new simulation with magnetic field injections from multiple AGNs. We find that the cluster with multiple injection sources is magnetized to a similar level as in previous simulations with a single AGN. The RM profiles from simulated clusters, both |RM| and the dispersion of RM ({sigma}{sub RM}), are consistent at a first order with the radial distribution from observations. The correlations between the {sigma}{sub RM} and X-ray surface brightness from simulations are in a broad agreement with the observations, although there is an indication that the simulated clusters could be slightly overdense and less magnetized with respect to those in the observed sample. In addition, the simulated radio halos agree with the observed correlations between the radio power versus the cluster X-ray luminosity and between the radio power versus the radio halo size. These studies show that the cluster-wide magnetic fields that originate from AGNs and are then amplified by the ICM turbulence match observations of magnetic fields in galaxy clusters.
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
PROFILES OF DARK MATTER VELOCITY ANISOTROPY IN SIMULATED CLUSTERS
We report statistical results for dark matter (DM) velocity anisotropy, {beta}, from a sample of some 6000 cluster-size halos (at redshift zero) identified in a {Lambda}CDM hydrodynamical adaptive mesh refinement simulation performed with the ENZO code. These include profiles of {beta} in clusters with different masses, relaxation states, and at several redshifts, modeled both as spherical and triaxial DM configurations. Specifically, although we find a large scatter in the DM velocity anisotropy profiles of different halos (across elliptical shells extending to at least {approx}1.5r{sub vir}), universal patterns are found when these are averaged over halo mass, redshift, and relaxation stage. These are characterized by a very small velocity anisotropy at the halo center, increasing outward to {approx}0.27 and leveling off at {approx}0.2r{sub vir}. Indirect measurements of the DM velocity anisotropy fall on the upper end of the theoretically expected range. Though measured indirectly, the estimations are derived by using two different surrogate measurements-X-ray and galaxy dynamics. Current estimates of the DM velocity anisotropy are based on a very small cluster sample. Increasing this sample will allow theoretical predictions to be tested, including the speculation that the decay of DM particles results in a large velocity boost. We also find, in accord with previous works, that halos are triaxial and likely to be more prolate when unrelaxed, whereas relaxed halos are more likely to be oblate. Our analysis does not indicate that there is significant correlation (found in some previous studies) between the radial density slope, {gamma}, and {beta} at large radii, 0.3 r{sub vir} < r < r{sub vir}.
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
THE TWO STATES OF STAR-FORMING CLOUDS
We examine the effects of self-gravity and magnetic fields on supersonic turbulence in isothermal molecular clouds with high-resolution simulations and adaptive mesh refinement. These simulations use large root grids (512{sup 3}) to capture turbulence and four levels of refinement to follow the collapse to high densities, for an effective resolution of 8192{sup 3}. Three Mach 9 simulations are performed, two super-Alfvenic and one trans-Alfvenic. We find that gravity splits the clouds into two populations, one low-density turbulent state and one high-density collapsing state. The low-density state exhibits properties similar to non-self-gravitating in this regime, and we examine the effects of varied magnetic field strength on statistical properties: the density probability distribution function is approximately lognormal, the velocity power spectral slopes decrease with decreasing mean field strength, the alignment between velocity and magnetic field increases with the field, and the magnetic field probability distribution can be fitted to a stretched exponential. The high-density state is well characterized by self-similar spheres: the density probability distribution is a power law, collapse rate decreases with increasing mean field, density power spectra have positive slopes, P({rho}, k){proportional_to}k, thermal-to-magnetic pressure ratios are roughly unity for all mean field strengths, dynamic-to-magnetic pressure ratios are larger than unity for all mean field strengths, the magnetic field distribution follows a power-law distribution. The high Alfven Mach numbers in collapsing regions explain the recent observations of magnetic influence decreasing with density. We also find that the high-density state is typically found in filaments formed by converging flows, consistent with recent Herschel observations. Possible modifications to existing star formation theories are explored. The overall trans-Alfvenic nature of star-forming clouds is discussed.
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
COMPARING NUMERICAL METHODS FOR ISOTHERMAL MAGNETIZED SUPERSONIC TURBULENCE
Many astrophysical applications involve magnetized turbulent flows with shock waves. Ab initio star formation simulations require a robust representation of supersonic turbulence in molecular clouds on a wide range of scales imposing stringent demands on the quality of numerical algorithms. We employ simulations of supersonic super-Alfvenic turbulence decay as a benchmark test problem to assess and compare the performance of nine popular astrophysical MHD methods actively used to model star formation. The set of nine codes includes: ENZO, FLASH, KT-MHD, LL-MHD, PLUTO, PPML, RAMSES, STAGGER, and ZEUS. These applications employ a variety of numerical approaches, including both split and unsplit, finite difference and finite volume, divergence preserving and divergence cleaning, a variety of Riemann solvers, and a range of spatial reconstruction and time integration techniques. We present a comprehensive set of statistical measures designed to quantify the effects of numerical dissipation in these MHD solvers. We compare power spectra for basic fields to determine the effective spectral bandwidth of the methods and rank them based on their relative effective Reynolds numbers. We also compare numerical dissipation for solenoidal and dilatational velocity components to check for possible impacts of the numerics on small-scale density statistics. Finally, we discuss the convergence of various characteristics for the turbulence decay test and the impact of various components of numerical schemes on the accuracy of solutions. The nine codes gave qualitatively the same results, implying that they are all performing reasonably well and are useful for scientific applications. We show that the best performing codes employ a consistently high order of accuracy for spatial reconstruction of the evolved fields, transverse gradient interpolation, conservation law update step, and Lorentz force computation. The best results are achieved with divergence-free evolution of the magnetic field using the constrained transport method and using little to no explicit artificial viscosity. Codes that fall short in one or more of these areas are still useful, but they must compensate for higher numerical dissipation with higher numerical resolution. This paper is the largest, most comprehensive MHD code comparison on an application-like test problem to date. We hope this work will help developers improve their numerical algorithms while helping users to make informed choices about choosing optimal applications for their specific astrophysical problems.
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
YT: A Multi-Code Analysis Toolkit for Astrophysical Simulation Data
The analysis of complex multiphysics astrophysical simulations presents a unique and rapidly growing set of challenges: reproducibility, parallelization, and vast increases in data size and complexity chief among them. In order to meet these challenges, and in order to open up new avenues for collaboration between users of multiple simulation platforms, we present yt (available at http://yt.enzotools.org/) an open source, community-developed astrophysical analysis and visualization toolkit. Analysis and visualization with yt are oriented around physically relevant quantities rather than quantities native to astrophysical simulation codes. While originally designed for handling Enzo's structure adaptive mesh refinement data, yt has been extended to work with several different simulation methods and simulation codes including Orion, RAMSES, and FLASH. We report on its methods for reading, handling, and visualizing data, including projections, multivariate volume rendering, multi-dimensional histograms, halo finding, light cone generation, and topologically connected isocontour identification. Furthermore, we discuss the underlying algorithms yt uses for processing and visualizing data, and its mechanisms for parallelization of analysis tasks.
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗